OLD Hot-line at 712 432-8788 For Yiddish key in 11211# then 0# - For English key in 11206# then 0# - For Hebrew key in 10952 then 0# To Pause click 1 - To jump forward click 6 - To move backwards click 4 ___________________________________________

תקנות פון בלאג: יעדער קען שרייבען תגובות, אבער נישט קיין ניבול פה, באליידיגען אדער סטראשענען, ווער עס וועט נישט איינהאלטען די תקנות וועט מען חוסם זיין..Rules of the Blog: Everybody is welcome to write comments, however no vulgar language, insults or threats will be tolerated, you will be banned immediatelyDo NOT keep changing your Nick when writing comments, I can recognize you and will ban youIf you are aware of any molestation in the Jewish community, please report it to the proper authorities, and then please send us an emil with as many details as possible, so we can follow up and warn the TziburThis Blog is here for a purpose - to fight pedophilia and znus, not for snide remarks, filthy comments or threats

LONDON — London’s Haredi leadership has hit back at a television
program claiming that the community covers up child sex abuse, saying the show
“has done nothing to assist, and may have damaged, the chances of bringing
abusers to justice.”

The program, “Britain’s Hidden Child Abuse,” aired on Channel 4 on
Wednesday and alleged that rabbis in the Orthodox community forbid or
discourage alleged victims of pedophilia from going to the secular authorities.
It showed secretly filmed footage of two Haredi rabbis approached for advice by
a former member of the community, who alleged that he had been sexually abused
as a child.

One, Ephraim Padwa, the head of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew
Congregations, explicitly forbade him from going to the police. The other,
religious judge Osher Westheim of the Manchester Beth Din, or religious court,
said he was personally investigating allegations that a teacher at a local
Jewish school was a pedophile, and claimed to have succeeded in getting some
perpetrators to pay compensation to their victims — including, once, £5,000
($7,900). He said that going to the authorities was permissible.

A spokesman for the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, an
umbrella organization for Orthodox institutions in London, told The Times of
Israel that the program’s credibility was undermined by its reliance on
anonymous sources. These included a rabbi whose face was not shown, who claimed
that a young family had been driven out of its community after reporting abuse
to authorities, and two young men who claimed to have taken the law into their
own hands by attacking alleged perpetrators after their complaints of abuse
were ignored by the rabbis.

“Channel 4 chose to use an anonymous ‘rabbi,’ an unidentified group
of thuggish vigilantes, a young man whose claims cannot be verified and two
specific cases that Channel 4 knew full well to have been investigated
thoroughly by the local authorities and dropped without action to imply that
our community does not take its responsibilities seriously,” the spokesman
said.

“Our community does not need Channel 4 to remind us of our duty and
responsibility to protect our children. They are our future, and we do all we
can to protect them from these unspeakable crimes.

“For a number of years, we have worked with the local authorities
and, where appropriate, the police, and we have robust procedures in place
within all our schools. Let us now hope that Channel 4′s attempt to defame us
does not discourage victims from coming forward to seek the help and guidance
of our Child Protection Services.”

Channel 4 did not respond to questions posed by The Times of
Israel. However, its press office said the program was watched by nearly
750,000 viewers, an audience it described as “very positive for an
investigation of such a sensitive nature airing at 10:30 p.m.”

About 40,000 of the UK’s approximately 280,000 Jews are Haredi.
Unlike in New York, the issue of child sex abuse in the Orthodox world received
little airing in London before Wednesday night, and it was unclear how the
program would affect the community’s treatment of the problem. In the days
before the show aired, the Union released a statement to affiliated rabbis and
educators announcing the formation of a child protection committee composed of
people with relevant training.

According to the document, written in Hebrew, the rabbis “recognize
that there are certain times when it is correct and necessary to call the
police,” and the committee “will consult with the rabbis to determine the
proper course of action in each case.”

The initial response to the Channel 4 program has been difficult to
gauge, but it seems to have been welcomed by both Jewish and non-Jewish
commenters online, who reacted with horror to the allegation that sex crimes
were covered up.

One expert on British Haredim, Yaakov Wise of the Centre for Jewish
Studies at the University of Manchester, criticized the program for a lack of
nuance, saying it did not sufficiently explore reasons the community is
reluctant to report cases to the police, or the evolution of its attitudes
about abuse and secular law enforcement.

“It did not get to the root of the real issue — the increasing
alienation of the Haredi community in Britain,” he said.

When Wise worked for the borough council in London’s Stamford Hill
district in the 1980s, he said, he was involved in several cases of child
abuse. The rabbi who then headed the Union, Yosef Tzvi Dunner, instructed him
to go immediately to the police.

Since then, he said, the community has grown more reluctant to
involve the authorities.

“There has been a change in personalities and in the community,” he
said. “Stamford Hill has become less attached to modernity, and more enclosed
and alienated [from contemporary Britain].”

“The problem is that people seem to view the modern British police
force in the same way they looked at the Tzarist police in the 19th century.
They don’t trust them to be sensitive enough.”

He added, however, that while Padwa is “very influential,” there
were diverse attitudes toward reporting sexual crimes in the Orthodox world,
and the program presented an unfairly monolithic view.

Asked what the long-term impact of the program might be, he
predicted there would be none.

“Most Haredim don’t have televisions and didn’t see it,” he said.
“It will be a nine-day wonder.”